The Masterpiece Podcast
“Presented by Masterpiece London in partnership with Apollo, this three-part series of podcasts provides an insight into the works on show at this year’s Masterpiece fair. In the first episode, Sophie Barling talks to Pakistani-American artist Anila Quayyum Agha about her attention-grabbing installation for Masterpiece Presents, at the entrance to this year’s Masterpiece London fair; to Errol Manners of ceramics specialists E & H Manners; and to James Brett, director of the Gallery of Everything, about two intriguing pieces on his stand at the fair this year.
Masterpiece London is at the Royal Hospital Chelsea from 30 June–6 July.”
See the full article and listen to the podcast here.
Anila Agha Official Artist at Masterpiece London Art Fair 2022
Masterpiece London Art Fair 2022:
Preview Day
Wednesday 29 June 11.00 – 21.00
Public Days
Thursday 30 June 11.00 – 21.00 Friday 1 July 11.00 – 19.00 Saturday 2 July 11.00 – 19.00
Sunday 3 July 11.00 – 19.00 Monday 4 July 11.00 – 21.00 Tuesday 5 July 11.00 – 21.00
Wednesday 6 July 11.00 – 21.00
This year’s Masterpiece Presents features two monumental light installations by Pakistani-American artist Anila Agha, represented by Sundaram Tagore Gallery. The artist is known for her award-winning, immersive light installations, and has been the subject of three solo museum shows in the past year.
For this special Masterpiece presentation, Agha has created an illuminated cube, fabricated from laser-cut steel into which she cuts elaborate patterns. Suspended and lit from within, the work casts lace-like floor-to-ceiling shadows that completely transform the surrounding environment, alluding to the richly ornamented public spaces such as mosques that Agha was excluded from as a female growing up in Lahore. Agha’s second installation at Masterpiece, This is NOT a Refuge II explores the loss of family and home that stems from displacement and resettlement…
Mysterious Inner Worlds @ The University of New Mexico Art Museum
On View from February 18th - July 2, 2022
Mysterious Inner Worlds is the first solo exhibition in New Mexico featuring Anila Quayyum Agha. The exhibition features four sculptures activated by light, including the large-scale light installation titled Intersections (2014) and the debut of the sculpture Steel Garden (Red) (2021).
Agha combines forms from Islamic architecture with her own concepts about patterns of sacred and worldly spaces. Her work ranges in scale from monumental installations to intricate embroidered drawings. She is inspired by her personal experiences as a woman and an immigrant from Pakistan, arriving in the US just before September 2001, as well as her concerns about the environment. Agha’s work engages more broadly with the dynamic and contradictory relationships among immigrant experiences as well as the intersectionality of gender, religion, labor, and social codes…
Fall 2020 Updates
A new newsletter is out with updated information on exhibitions and on goings. Please read here.
Anila Agha on Disturbing the Piece Podcast
Listen to Anila Agha speak about growing up in Pakistan and how multiculturalism has influenced her artwork on the Disturbing the Piece podcast.
Itinerant Shadows Exhibitions @ Talley Dunn Gallery
Exhibition titled Itinerant Shadows opened up on February 9th at Talley Dunn Gallery in Dallas, TX. The solo show will be running through March 23rd and features new drawings and installations, including This is NOT a Refuge! 2 (seen above). To learn more about the exhibition, including the press release, please click here.
ArtPrize 10-Year Retrospective
A stunning, irreverent look back at the past 10 years of ArtPrize in Grand Rapids - told through the lens of the ever-talented team at Brian Kelly Photography & Film.
Directed and Produced by Brian Kelly
Written by Evan Koons
Post-production by Fission3
24 Hour Time-Lapse Video of "This is NOT a Refuge!"
A 24 hour time-lapse video done by Kansas City Art Institute during Open Spaces art festival
"This is NOT a Refuge" @ Open Spaces Kansas City
Time lapse video of new piece This is NOT a Refuge being installed at Kansas City Art Institute Rowland Plaza for Open Spaces: Kansas City Arts Experience. The piece will be exhibited for a year, continuing on after the Kansas City Biennale ends in October.
24 Time-Lapse of "This is NOT a Refuge!"
24 time-lapse video made by Kansas City Art Institute from Open Spaces art festival in Kansas City
Awarded the Joan Mitchell Fellowship & Lucas Artist Residency
Joan Mitchell Fellowship
Joan Mitchell Foundation, New York, NY
Lucas Artist Residency
Montalvo Art Center, Saratoga, CA
Anila's Work Currently on View in Five Exhibitions
If you haven’t had the opportunity to go out and see Anila’s work yet, this is your chance. Currently in four museum exhibitions, the fifth is set to open on May 19th at Grand Rapids Art Museum in Grand Rapids, MI, showcasing her iconic piece, Intersections. Just missing the total of six exhibitions open at one time, two installation shows ended, one in March and another April, at The Brattleboro Museum in Vermont which displayed Agha’s installation piece Shimmering Mirage and The Peabody Essex Museum with her piece All the Flowers are for Me- Black. The current four exhibitions span along the east coast as far north as Massachusetts to as south as Florida and range from solo installations to group shows featuring some of her 2-dimensional work.
Starting off the furthest north along the east coast, the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA is showcasing the installation piece Hidden Diamond, to see some of Agha’s 2-dimensional work you can visit the group exhibition Long, Winding Journeys: Contemporary Art and the Islamic Tradition at the Katonah Art Museum, and the North Carolina Museum of Art has her piece that won the 2014 Artprize, Intersections.
One of her newest pieces, The Greys in Between, has recently opened in the atrium of MOCA Jacksonville in Florida. Agha’s installation pieces focus on the reclaiming of public spaces that historically have been associated with the masculine domain. Using Islamic architectural motifs, light and shadow, and now movement, these installations cast viewers, of all cultural backgrounds, under its shadows allowing all to contemplate and reflect.
To find out more about each of these exhibitions and museums please follow the links:
Grand Rapids Art Museum: Grand Rapids, MI
Anila Quayyum Agha: Intersections
May 19 – August 26, 2018
http://www.artmuseumgr.org/2017/10/20/anila-quayyum-agha-intersections/
Museum of Contemporary Art: Jacksonville, FL
Project Atrium
https://mocajacksonville.unf.edu/events/Project-Atrium--Anila-Agha-Previews/
Katonah Museum of Art: Katonah, NY
Long, Winding Journeys: Contemporary Art and the Islamic Tradition
February 25 – June 17, 2018
http://www.katonahmuseum.org/exhibitions/
North Carolina Museum of Art: Raleigh, NC
You Are Here: Light, Color, and the Sound Experience
April 7 – July 22, 2018
http://ncartmuseum.org/exhibition/you_are_here_light_color_and_sound_experiences
Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy: Andover, MA
Convergence: Anila Quayyum Agha, Lalla Essaydi, Yun-Fei Ji, and Fred Han Chang Liang
January 27 – July 31, 2018
https://addison.andover.edu/Exhibitions/Convergence/Pages/default.aspx?in=On+View+Now
Peabody Essex Museum: Salem, MA
All the Flowers are For Me
May 20, 2017 – April 29, 2018
https://www.pem.org/exhibitions/all-the-flowers-are-for-me
Brattleboro Museum and Art Center: Brattleboro, Vermont
Shimmering Mirage: Anila Quayyum Agha
October 13, 2017 – March 10, 2018
http://www.brattleboromuseum.org/2017/10/08/shimmering-mirage-anila-quayyum-agha/
New Video of Alhambra Nights and All the Flowers are for Me
New video about Alhambra Nights and All the Flowers are for Me by Kentucky Educational Television on PBS Learning about my pieces that were shown at BLINK Festival in Cincinnati, OH.
Shimmering Mirage at Brattleboro Museum & Art Center
Calligraphy and geometric patterns are hallmarks of Islamic art and architecture. In the Middle East the interiors of mosques, the windows of homes, and the walls of gardens and terraces are often constructed with elaborately pierced and carved screens. The patterned openwork filters light and allows air to pass through—effective strategies in dealing with the oppressive heat and bright sunlight of the region. The cutout screens also animate relatively plain interior spaces with the play of light and shadow created by their decorative designs.
Anila Quayyum Agha is passionate about bringing the beauty of Islam to the West, as well as familiarizing viewers with the conceptual grandeur of its spiritual thought about nature and the cosmos. Her steel sculpture, cut with patterns redesigned from Islamic motifs and housing a single white light bulb, transforms the gallery from an unadorned room into an enveloping world of patterned light and dark. The shadows cast in all directions by the light spilling through the sculpture’s cutout surfaces work a kind of magic, creating dynamic, intricate designs. The experience is at once weighty and weightless, transporting viewers to a mysterious, even sacred, environment.
— Mara Williams, Chief Curator
Lucid Dreams and Distant Visions: South Asian Art in the Diaspora
NEW YORK, April 26, 2017 — Asia Society Museum in New York shines a spotlight on the work of nineteen contemporary artists from the South Asian diaspora. As individuals living between worlds, diasporic artists often negotiate notions of home and issues relating to migration, gender, race, and memory in their practice. Lucid Dreams and Distant Visions: South Asian Art in the Diaspora, organized by Asia Society Museum with the support of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, will be on view from June 27 to August 6, 2017.
Acquisition & Schiele Prize Fellowship at Cincinnati Art Museum
CINCINNATI— Pakistani-American artist Anila Quayyum Agha has been named the recipient of Cincinnati Art Museum’s 2017 Schiele Prize. This prize honors the legacy of Marjorie Schiele, a Cincinnati artist whose generous bequest of the Hanke-Schiele Fund makes this award possible.
Walking with My Mother's Shadow @ Aicon Gallery (NYC)
New solo exhibition at Aicon Gallery in NYC running October 20 – November 26, 2016
V.I.P Preview & Opening Reception: Thursday, October 20th, 2016, 6-8pm
Featured the artist in discussion with Sona Dutta, Curator of South Asian Art at Peabody Essex Museum
Aicon Gallery
35 Great Jones Street
New York, NY 10012
Intersections @ Indiana State Museum
200 Years of Indiana Art: A Cultural Legacy presents original historical and contemporary works of art by those who help shape Indiana’s view of the world and the world’s view of Indiana. Representing artists from across the state, the exhibition includes paintings, sculpture, textile, glass and mixed media works showcasing the depth, diversity and breadth of artistic talent associated with the Hoosier state. From the early pioneer painters to the contemporary installation artists, this exhibition is a must-see during Indiana’s bicentennial celebration.
The Arch of My Eye’s Orbit @ Brooklyn Academy of Music
Hyperallergic editor-in-chief and co-founder Hrag Vartanian curates this group show featuring work by Anila Quayyum Agha, Kamrooz Aram, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, and Slavs and Tatars. Reflecting on the cosmopolitan nature of cities and their interplay of light, language, symbols, and networks, The Arch of My Eye’s Orbit (a title derived from a verse by the 14th-century Persian poet Hāfez) thematically points to a connection between architecture and the act of seeing. The exhibition uses the frame of the city and its architecture to explore and uncover the visual and physical space between ancient and modern, past and present.
Curated by Hrag Vartanian
Exhibition is open to the public during building hours. The Diker Gallery Café is open to the public during BAMcafé hours.